Cocktail of Food Science and Argumentation: Shaken or Stirred for Learning?

Abstract

Food science like other domains of science poses challenges to teachers and learners. A significant challenge concerns the articulation in the learning environment of the evidence and justification for the knowledge claims made about food. Often such claims are based not on evidence but myth. What is the evidence that a potato will absorb excess salt in a soup or stew? Or that butter will spoil if not refrigerated constantly? Articulation of the evidence and justification necessitates the incorporation of the epistemic practices of food science in the learning environment. Epistemic practices are the cognitive and discursive activities that develop epistemic understanding – understanding of the nature of knowledge including how knowledge production occurs. Argumentation, the coordination of theory and evidence, is an example epistemic practice that has grown as an area of interest in science education in the past two decades. Numerous studies have highlighted the importance of argumentative discourse in the acquisition of scientific knowledge and the development of habits of mind in science. The implication is that argumentation is a form of discourse that needs to be appropriated by learners and explicitly taught through suitable instruction, task structuring and modeling. In this paper, an example introduced to illustrate how argumentation can be contextualised in food science with concrete teaching and learning scenarios. The question is raised about whether the argumentation orientation poses a radical stir or it could be integrated into existing instructional frameworks in food science. A set of recommendations for the design and implementation of professional development provision are provided to enhance food science teachers’ learning of epistemic practices of science including argumentation.